We need to move faster than a ban in 2040. We should ban production of all diesel cars by 2025 and ban production of all gasoline cars by 2030. However, R&D in combustion engines should be banned starting in 2020 in order to force the auto industry to focus their resources on making zero emission vehicles. Polluting products of any kinds should not be legal to make when there are non-polluting alternatives. Banning polluting products is better policy than subsidizing non-polluting products. It is much easier to implement a ban than a subsidy.
The old light bulb was banned and now we got LED lights that uses only 1/10 of the power to make the same light. We can do it with cars also to get rid of most air pollution. The more BEVs we make the better and cheaper they get as witnessed by Tesla’s first mass produced car the Model 3 at only 35k USD or the same price as comparable combustion offerings from Audi, BMW and Benz.

Nicolas Hulot, France’s new minister responsible for environment and energy, presented the country’s new climate plan at a press conference at the Ministry. Prepared at the request of the President and the Prime Minister, the climate action plan is divided into six main themes: render the Paris...

We should ban production of all diesel cars by 2025 and ban production of all gasoline cars by 2030. However, R&D in combustion engines should be banned starting in 2020 in order to force the auto industry to focus their resources on making zero emission vehicles. Polluting products of any kinds should not be legal to make when there are non-polluting alternatives. Banning polluting products is better policy than subsidising non-polluting products. It is much easier to implement a ban than a subsidy.

Electric vehicles will make up the majority of new car sales worldwide by 2040, and account for 33% of all the light-duty vehicles on the road, according to a new forecast published by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). This represents an aggressive jump compared to BNEF’s previous forecast o...

The interesting thing IMO is that when Tesla introduced the 100kwh pack it was in higher demand than Tesla could deliver. However, Tesla could deliver the old 90kwh pack in volume for customers for new Model X and Model S so Tesla’s customers must have chosen to a large degree to order the 100kwh versions despite having to wait longer for their delivery and that is the real cause for the less than expected deliveries. Apparently bigger battery packs are in really high demand. I am therefore sure that Tesla at some point will make an even larger battery pack available for model S and X.
The thing about Musk saying that there are no current plans for using 2170 cells in Model S and X could be by request from Panasonic that would like Tesla to continue for a few more years using the 18650 cells in Model S and X so they can get a better return on their Japanese battery factories making these cells.
To get all the news about Tesla and the self-driving BEV future of the automotive industry I recommend reading https://electrek.co/ or http://www.teslarati.com/
Unfortunately it is my impression that Green Car Congress is biased against Tesla and mostly is interested in reporting news from the old auto-industry which is still predominantly focused on combustion engines and silly fuel cell cars that will never come to market.

Tesla reported delivering just over 22,000 vehicles in Q2, of which just over 12,000 were Model S and just over 10,000 were Model X. While the Q2 2017 deliveries represent a 53% increase over Q2 2016, the figure is at the low-end of Tesla’s earlier guidance, and down about 12% from Q1 2017 deliv...

Results of a study by a team at the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, SOEST, University of Hawaii at Manoa, suggest that the additional cycling to discharge vehicle batteries to the power grid in a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) scenario, even at constant power, is detrimental to EV battery cell performa...

Another fairytale project from Toyota. Shame on them for not being serious about sustainability. Toyota sells less than 1000 zero emission vehicles per year. Tesla sells over 100,000 per year.
Musk tweeted that Tesla will reveal their zero emission BEV semi for long-haul heavy duty by September this year. That will be interesting because it is not a fairytale. BEV semis will not even need a driver cabin because they will be driverless. And range does not matter as the unmanned BEV semi has no problem waiting to charge every hour or so (every 100 miles, 24/7). The first BEV semi, however, may get a cabin because the autopilot system needs to be developed based on driver inputs from a human driver at first.

Toyota Motor North America, Inc. (TMNA) revealed “Project Portal”—a hydrogen fuel cell system designed for heavy-duty trucks applied in a Class 8 truck for use at the Port of Los Angeles (POLA). Announced at a press conference with Port officials and representatives from California Air Resour...

Tesla’s and all other car makers’ driver attention systems are based on hands-on, steering and pedal input. Going to be interesting to see how GM believes they can keep their drivers attentive without hands-on.
I think Tesla will keep the hand’s on driver attention system active unlit the autopilot reaches level 4 and is approved for level 4 driving. When they reach level 5 Tesla will ask for permission to sell their cars without human controls. Pedals and steering wheel should be an optional feature in a level 5 car. You can have it but only if you pay extra like the 4000 USD it may cost in a 35k USD car.

Jeff go to Tesla order manager and you will see the 60kwh model s can be upgraded at any time after purchase to a 75kwh battery because Tesla do not make a 60kwh battery it is just software limited to 60kwh in order to offer the car at a lower price point to some customers. https://www.tesla.com/models/design
Same with autopilot hardware. All Tesla cars come with it (also model 3) even if you do not order it. But if you decide later on you want to activate it you just make a few tabs on the car's touchscreen and pay the price it cost to have these abilities activated. You pay more to have it activated after purchase of the cars than if you order it with these features when you configure and buy your car. That is how Tesla do it.

Citing “sources close to the matter,” the Korea Herald reports that Hyundai Motor is developing solid-state batteries for its electric vehicles, and has established pilot-scale production facilities. “Hyundai is developing solid-state batteries through its Namyang R&D Center’s battery precede...

The 30% energy density improvement may actually be a reference to improvement from the original 85kwh pack to the new battery pack in Model 3. Since the 85kwh pack is now a 100kwh pack the change from 18650 cells in that pack to 2170 cells will probably imply a 15% improvement in energy density from the the curret 100kwh pack.
See https://electrek.co/2016/11/14/tesla-model-3-battery-energy-density-model-s/

Citing “sources close to the matter,” the Korea Herald reports that Hyundai Motor is developing solid-state batteries for its electric vehicles, and has established pilot-scale production facilities. “Hyundai is developing solid-state batteries through its Namyang R&D Center’s battery precede...

I also expect Tesla to soon drop making different size battery packs. They will make the 100kwh pack for Model S and Model X and a 75kwh pack for Model 3. I expect Tesla to price differentiate by offering their cars with different kwh available at purchase. For example, the Model 3 can be ordered for 35k USD with 55kwh available for 220 miles range but since it has a 75kwh battery it can always be upgraded to that pack size by a software purchase. Say pay 5000 USD more to get 75kwh unlocked and get 300 miles range.
There is a good chance that Tesla will stop making the 75kwh pack for Model S and Model X later this month when they discontinue the 60kwh version for Model S. Hereafter all cars will come with a 100kwh pack to be software limited to either 75 or 100kwh.
Tesla’s battery cost are really low now so Tesla can save money by simplifying production and development if they only develop one pack size for each distinct car model. So one pack only for Model 3 and Model Y and one pack only for Model S and X.

Citing “sources close to the matter,” the Korea Herald reports that Hyundai Motor is developing solid-state batteries for its electric vehicles, and has established pilot-scale production facilities. “Hyundai is developing solid-state batteries through its Namyang R&D Center’s battery precede...

Musk say 30% increase in his Q4 shareholders webcast. Link below. Elsewhere he has said the 100kwh is enough for Model S we may not see a larger battery pack for Model S when it starts to use the 2170 cells in 2018. Range will nevertheless increase as the weight could drop 200 to 300 pounds with the 2170 cell. I think the 2170 cells will be optimized for faster charging. 300 to 400k watt or 15 min for a 300 mile charge. Important for self-driving cars that needs to operate 24/7 and spend lille time charging.
http://ir.tesla.com/events.cfm

Citing “sources close to the matter,” the Korea Herald reports that Hyundai Motor is developing solid-state batteries for its electric vehicles, and has established pilot-scale production facilities. “Hyundai is developing solid-state batteries through its Namyang R&D Center’s battery precede...

What matters are the state of the art batteries that can be produced today for current BEVs. Electrek had a rare piece of news about the 18650 cell that Tesla and Panasonic has co developed and compared it to the standard cell by Panasonic.
Note the Tesla/Panasonic cell is good for 3000 deep cycles at 25 degrees Celsius and still maintain 90% of its capacity. The Model S 100 can drive 3000*335 = 1,005,000 miles with its battery. No other BEV maker currently has such a durable battery.
Tesla’s next negation 2170 cell will probably have the same durability but Musk say its energy density increases by 30% and it is cheaper to produce. That cell will go into the Model 3 this year and Model S and X in early 2018.
https://electrek.co/2017/03/22/tesla-battery-cell-breakdown/
When Goodenough co invented and patented the worlds first lithium battery it took Sony 13 years to make the first product that used this battery. Expect 10 to 15 years lead time for battery inventions to market applications. I have stopped reading about battery inventions for that reason.
It is more interesting to read about what Tesla does and how fast others are able to copy what Tesla does. LG and Samsung are working on bringing similar 2170 cells to market by 2018 to 2021 for Faraday and Lucid. This is interesting.
https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/lucid-motors-lg-chem-supply-li-ion-battery-cell/
https://electrek.co/2017/01/09/samsung-2170-battery-cell-tesla-panasonic/

Citing “sources close to the matter,” the Korea Herald reports that Hyundai Motor is developing solid-state batteries for its electric vehicles, and has established pilot-scale production facilities. “Hyundai is developing solid-state batteries through its Namyang R&D Center’s battery precede...

The sooner we get to level 4 and 5 the more lives will be saved. If we can get to it 12 months earlier by using level 3 first we will save nearly 1.2 million lives on a global scale. I am convinced that level 3 will result in some death accidents because of the inattention it induces at some people who simply can’t get it that they must pay attention and must be able to take over immediately. I am not convinced that 1.2 million people will die on that account. Not even close. There are also ways to force drivers to keep attention in a level 3 car like requiring hands on the steering wheel and driver input at least once every 60 seconds etc like Tesla does. The time it takes to evolve from level 3 to level 4 in an OTA updatable car like Tesla is probably also very limited. It will be only 6 to 12 months for Tesla. Volvo is overreacting and thereby risking more deaths as a result.
Level 3 is saving lives both by shortening the time it takes to get to level 4 and 5 and by saving people that would have created an accident if it was not for the always on attention of the level 3 autopilot.
However, once level 4 and 5 becomes available I think the law should require that cars come with minimum level 4 just like cars are required to satisfy crass tests etc. After 2024 no new car should be allowed for sale anywhere on the planet unless it has level 4 or level 5 autonomy. Such a law would save lives and speed up things.

Volvo Cars is urging governments and car makers to share traffic data in order to improve global traffic safety, Håkan Samuelsson, president and chief executive, told a conference at the European Commission in Brussels on Monday. Sharing anonymized data related to traffic safety in real-time can...

So only 40,000 work on BEVs in the US auto industry and Tesla employ 20,000 of those directly or indirectly or 50%. It shows the old auto industry is not serious about BEVs. There are no sustainable automakers apart from Tesla. Other automakers are only in the BEV business for compliance reasons or green show-off without real effort.

According to figures gathered by the US Department of Energy (DOE), 11% of the 2.3 million jobs supported by the motor vehicles and component parts industry for the first quarter of 2016 were related to alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles. The majority of employment (82%) was rela...

The arrival of fully self-driving BEVs will change everything. That will give the BEVs the edge they need to outcompete gassers as fast as the world can built the 100 gigafactories to go all BEVs in the global autoindustry.

After considering the Advanced Clean Cars Midterm Review (earlier post), the California Air Resources Board voted unanimously on Friday to continue with the vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards and ZEV program for cars and light trucks sold in California through 2025. The action ensures tha...

We need this pipeline and many others to come. Transporting oil using rail and truck is the far more polluting/energy intensive alternative. The cost of transporting 1 barrel of oil 1000 miles is about 3 USD with a pipeline, 7 USD with rail and 15 USD with trucks. Most of that cost increase is for burning diesel. So we should use pipelines that are cheaper and pollute less. Tar sand is stone dead at 50 USD per barrel. No new project will be build. However, shale oil is booming at 50 USD per barrel. The shale revolution is bigger than most people understand. It will make the US an oil net exporting nation before 2020. We need that to happen for the free world to stop buying oil from islamofascist countries. The clash of civilizations is happening and it is accelerating. We need to prepare for more war because it is coming.
The biggest change will happen with self-driving cars that will make BEVs the only kind of vehicles in demand with gassers declining because they cost more to operate per taxi mile. Can’t wait for that to happen.

The US Department of State has signed and issued a Presidential Permit to construct the Keystone XL Pipeline. The permit authorizes TransCanada to construct, to connect, to operate, and to maintain pipeline facilities at the US-Canadian border in Phillips County, Montana for the importation of ...

Musk did a lot of tweeting last night about the Model 3 and the solar roof that they will take orders from in late April and start delivering in the summer.
Musk tweeted a low resolution video of their first release candidate made by production equipment. It looked exactly like previous models apart perhaps from a sharper front end.
https://electrek.co/2017/03/24/tesla-model-3-release-candidate-drive-elon-musk/
Musk said it will feature one screen only for everything infotainment, autopilot, speed etc. So no fancy head up display. The door handles also look more conventional in the video. I do not think they are electric.
Herman the battery will be new for model 3. It will use the new battery packing tech that was introduced in Model X and S with the 100kwh pack. That battery packing tech will also soon replace Tesla’s 60 to 75kwh packs with my guess a 65 to 80 kwh pack for model s and x.
Model s and x still use the 18650 cell in their pack but model 3 will use the new 2170 cell made at the giga factory. That cell is different in form factor and cell chemistry from the 18650 cell. The cell is produced already at the gigafactory for the powerwall 2 and the powerpack 2.
Musk said that the 2170 will also go into the model s and x but not before the start of 2018. The cell is a huge step up from the 18650 with a 30% increase in wh/kg but Musk has also said that 100kwh is enough for the model s that get 335 miles range. So when the 100kwh pack comes with 2170 cells it will just be used to cut weight and cost of that pack.
Musk said the Model 3 will launch like Model S with RWD first and then 9 months later with a dual engine drive and 3 months later with a performance model. He even said the top battery pack for model 3 is 75kwh. I am sure the entry battery pack is a 55kwh and that the model 3 will do 4 miles per kwh so 220 miles range for Model 3 55 and 300 miles for Model 3 75.
Musk also said that the fastest Tesla will still be the Model S until they make a new roadster. The performance version of model 3 will not beat the 2.5 sec to 60mph than model s manages.
Musk has also said that Tesla’s 30,000 employees will get ahead of everybody when ordering the Model 3 so the first few thousands will be for Tesla employees.

Problems associated with Tesla Model S and Model X have little influence on the overt affection owners have for these cars and the brand, according to a new J.D. Power report titled “Tesla: Beyond the Hype.” However, the J.D. Power report suggests, consumers who opt for Tesla’s next model, the M...

It is going to fail because they are not fully self-driving. By 2020 the Tesla Network could do all zero emission taxi driving in London for a fraction of the price per kilometer than this London Taxi.

The London Taxi Company (LTC) officially opened the UK’s first car plant dedicated solely to the production of range-extended electric vehicles. The new vehicle plant in Ansty, Coventry, will build the world’s first purpose-built, mass-market electric taxi. LTC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Geel...

Incremental changes will not save this planet from a global warming mass extinction event that will wipe out most life on this planet. It is already happening with species going extinct a 1000 times faster than in the preindustrial era. We need transformative change to completely end the burning of fossil fuels. And we need it fast.
The fastest way to make a transformational change to a fossil fee future is to embrace self-driving vehicles. Self-driving cars doing 100,000 miles per year instead of 15,000 miles per year will make BEVs cheaper than gasser all cost considered. That will cause BEVs to take over. With a mass market for BEVs the cost and quality of batteries will improve even faster and that will lead batteries to take over in shipping and aviation as well. Also renewable energy can be deployed on a massive scale when their intermittencies can be dealt with effectively using cheaper and more durable batteries. The most affordable way to deal with renewable intermittency is a combination of battery backup, long-distance transmission lines, over capacity (install more solar and wind than needed average in order to have enough energy under unfavorable weather conditions) and variable electricity prices that give consumers an incentive to adjust their consumption to the demand. Steel and aluminum production should happen only during spring and summer where electricity is cheap because of overproduction of solar power.

With the EPA re-opening its Mid-Term Review of GHG standards for 2022-2025 for light-duty vehicles (earlier post), and with NHTSA yet to weigh in on its Mid-Term evaluation of fuel economy standards for the same period, a team from the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) has pub...

Or maybe the truth is even direr. The old automakers can’t change because they are ruled by people who can’t change. This may be the more plausible explanation and it is quite often the explanation for why companies fail. Think about it all companies that are created will eventually die. Very few companies are over 50 years old and almost none over 100 years. I expect very few of today’s car companies to be around by 2035. But there will be many new auto companies like Tesla and perhaps Lucid and who knows maybe Apple, Samsung and Intel and Nvidia.

Lucid Motors, a Silicon Valley-based electric vehicle company, announced that the base version of its first vehicle, the Lucid Air luxury sedan (earlier post), will have a starting price of $52,500 after federal tax credits. Customers can place a $2,500 deposit to reserve a car at lucidmotors.co...

No it does not add up. They have been at it for 20 years with natural gas vehicles and noting meaningful has happened. Nothing at all. What part of less than 15,000 barrels per day in oil equivalents and diesel and gasoline is 13 million barrels per day in the US did you not get?

Natural gas as a vehicle fuel does not matter at all. It is less than 15,000 barrels per day in oil equivalents. For comparison, diesel and gasoline is 13 million barrels per day in the US. Problem is that handling gas is too expensive. Maintenance cost of high pressure gas tanks is a show stopper for viable vehicle applications.
However, natural gas that is now predominantly produced by shale wells in the US is inexpensive at 3 usd per mBTU compared to 9 USD per mbtu for oil. It will be used more for electricity production in the USA for sure.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_cons_sum_dcu_nus_a.htm
https://www.unitjuggler.com/convert-energy-from-boe-to-MMBtu.html

Tesla only issue 250 million USD of common stock and Musk will personally buy 10% of that.
I am looking forward to see Tesla launch their on-demand driverless Taxi service Tesla Network sometime in 2018. Profits from service is all Tesla need to finance multi-billion USD construction of new Giga factories and thousands of new service centers and supercharger stations globally while at the same time have positive net earnings.

Tesla announced offerings of $250 million of common stock and $750 million aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due in 2022 in concurrent underwritten registered public offerings. In addition, Tesla has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 15...

The old auto-industry show little interest in making attractive BEVs that are not destroying life for future generations. However, new companies like Lucid and Tesla will change the world for the better eventually.
The price/spec offering from Lucid is definitely competitive with other similar priced gasser offerings. However, Lucid have not yet started to build their factory. They believe they can build it from scratch and start making this car by the end of 2018. That sounds unrealistic in my ears. They have found the location (Casa Grande, Arizona, USA) for the factory but it is just a piece of dirt right now. It will take 3 years.
Lucidmotors are also only 300 people right now. I think they should move on as fast as they can but they need a lot of money to grow. Just like Tesla. Auto making is a capital intensive industry. To make 1 million BEVs per year you need to invest something like 20 billion USD in factories. Apple may buy Lucid if they can get their production started by 2019 and make 15,000 units for 2020. Smartphones is no longer a growth business. They will start to drop in price soon because they don’t need to get much better for most people. That is a problem for Apple and other tech companies like Samsung. The big growth opportunities are driverless BEVs, renewable energy and grid storage.
http://azbigmedia.com/azre-magazine/driving-in-manufacturing
http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/economy/2016/11/29/electric-vehicle-company-plans-casa-grande-plant-lucid-motors/94610502/

Lucid Motors, a Silicon Valley-based electric vehicle company, announced that the base version of its first vehicle, the Lucid Air luxury sedan (earlier post), will have a starting price of $52,500 after federal tax credits. Customers can place a $2,500 deposit to reserve a car at lucidmotors.co...

@Mahonj I think Intel is right about going into the self-driving vehicle business. They should because in 20 years there will be over a billion vehicles on the road with full self-drive and a monster computer as their AI brain and Intel could supply these cpus. But the price they pay for mobileye is insane. Intel could have poached talent from all over the world by paying higher wages and got what Mobileye has for a fraction of the 15 billion USD. It would take more time though.
Also I really believe that self-driving tech and software in particular is so strategically important for any auto maker that they will all want to do it all by themselves as soon as possible. Tesla dropped Mobileye when they could do the camera vision themselves and Tesla is preparing to make their own cpus so they will eventually not need Nvidia or anyone else for that either. Other car makers will do the same. They start by buying from the best external suppliers like mobileye and Nvidia and when they are ready to do it themselves they do that because this is how to differentiate their products and gain a competitive edge. There is a lot of stuff that can be done differently or better with self-driving software. For instance, better software could give better user experience and also better accident statistics but also better fuel economy and less maintenance cost simply by improving algorithms. This is how you will be able to gain market share and make more profits.

Intel Corporation announced a definitive agreement under which Intel would acquire Mobileye, a global leader in the development of computer vision and machine learning, data analysis, localization and mapping for advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving. A subsidiary of Intel w...

Repsol and partner Armstrong Energy have made the largest US onshore conventional hydrocarbons discovery in 30 years—up to approximately 1.2 billion barrels of recoverable light oil in the Nanushuk play in Alaska’s North Slope. The Horseshoe-1 and 1A wells drilled during the 2016-2017 winter ...